RALEIGH, N.C. - The 2009 hurricane season will be less active than last year's flurry of storms, and there's less than a 50 percent chance that a hurricane will hit the southeastern U.S., a researcher said Thursday.

On the Gulf Coast, however, there is a 70 percent chance a hurricane will make landfall.

ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia lawmakers rushed to consider vast changes to the state's transportation network and a series of sweeping new tax plans as they faced the tightest of political deadlines on Friday, the chaotic last day of the legislative session.

The Georgia Legislature's sole obligation during the 40-day legislative session is to pass the $18.6 billion spending plan, which would make deep spending cuts amid the lagging economy.

ATLANTA - House Democrats have again helped defeat a plan to double a tax break for homeowners. But Georgia-based businesses were big winners Wednesday in the state Senate, which voted to begin gradually wiping out the corporate income tax for companies with headquarters in the state.

The Republican-backed plan, which passed 43-7 in the Senate, would also give a tax break to businesses that hire jobless workers who are either collecting unemployment benefits or who have been out of work for 60 days or more.

ATLANTA - Frustrated black lawmakers staged a walkout Friday after the Georgia House decided to delay another vote on a resolution that would have honored President Barack Obama as a politician with an "unimpeachable reputation for integrity, vision and passion."

House Speaker Glenn Richardson vowed the decision to send the resolution to a committee did not "bury" the bill, but the move outraged black lawmakers, who stalked out of the chamber seconds later. They saw it as an effort to snub the nation's first black president by a group of white Republican legislators.

SAVANNAH - As bagpipers and shamrock-plastered floats passed the crowd, Nancy Cox raised a Bloody Mary and clicked the heels of her emerald slippers - one of the head-to-toe green accessories of her "Wizard of Oz" costume.

Each time her sparkling shoes touched, Cox repeated: "There's no place like Savannah."

ATLANTA - Georgia Power won approval Tuesday from the state Public Service Commission to build two new nuclear reactors near Augusta, which could be the first new nuclear project to break ground in the country in three decades.

The $14 billion expansion project at Plant Vogtle is set to begin construction in 2011 and is scheduled to be completed in 2017. The PSC voted 4-1 Tuesday to certify the proposal from Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must also sign off.

SAVANNAH - Thousands of gaudy green revelers are filling Savannah's downtown historic district for St. Patrick's Day - the coastal city's biggest celebration of the year.

Overnight rains had dispersed by Tuesday morning before the city's mammoth parade kicked off, as masses of residents and tourists clad head-to-toe in green crammed the sidewalks and the oak- shaded squares.

Articles by Section - State, National

Poverty is often thought of as something that strikes kids in places like Africa and India. And while that's true, a new study shows that poor American teens might feel the effects of poverty — like violence — as much or more than their counterparts in other places.